Skip to main content

#7 The Abstracted Self in Ink Values


Selfies in experimental ink flows

10" x 8" image size on 14" x 11" paper size
Watercolor paper 140#
Paper oreintation = vertical

Rules:
1. Take a Selfie of yourself, portrait scale. Play with a variety of gestures and foreshortening your figure. Your image should be strike up FUN!!!

2. Print out 5 black and white copy machine 8" x 10" (needs to fit onto 9" x 12" watercolor paper with gutter)

3. Use a Sharpie to break down the value areas into generalized flat shapes.  Make a few separate versions of these to choose the best one!

 When project has been completed all FIVE sketches need to be attached into your sketchbook.

 4. Once that has been selected, use a hard pencil to fill in the general shapes of the image.  Press hard enough to emboss the H20 paper underneath it. Alternatively, you may make soft pencil marks on the back of the image, so that when pressing down on it, the mark will transfer onto your drawing paper. 

4. Fill in positive form with flow of water, experiement with ink spots and salt. This area should be where the shadows are found in the Selfie image you have taken. 

Experiment with salt and a variety of mark making explorations you really like.   Salt is drying agent and can make beautiful crystalized abstract figures on your watercolor paper. Make use of your gained material knowledge from our last assignment on PLACEMENT PERSPECTIVE

 Make sure you do NOT complete two adjacent shapes together with your wet media or it will flow into the other!

Note: Overall this value should be the darkest you reach in this drawing

5. Allow to dry thoroughly before adding the background shapes with a waterflow and ink.  Note: Overall this value should be the middle grey in your drawing

6. Allow the lightest, high-keyed areas in the Selfie remain the white of the paper. They may also be, at the very least, the very lightest value range

Note:  High Contrast drawings, express the subject matter as being super flat. You should aim for at least five different areas of value and mark.

Your drawings should look enlivened with the abstract marks accomplished with your waterflows and ink.

Student Work examples: High Contrast drawings in two values / Sharpie marker
You will add your "twist" with value and media explorations in ink / H20 and salt

Student Work 
Part ONE







PART TWO - the value study drawing











Popular posts from this blog

#5 Negative Shape Drawings

In drawings there are three basic elements of composition:  the frame (the edge of the pictorial space)  the positive the negative space The positive space is easiest to understand because we see it. Generally, it is the space occupied by your subject.  Conversely, negative space is the space that is not your subject and people often simply forget about.  Simply put,  Negative space  is the  space  that surrounds an object within an image.  It is just as important as that object itself -- air is important for most every living organisims isn't it? N egative space  helps to define the boundaries of  positive space  and brings balance to a composition. The negative space is defined by the edges of the positive space and the frame or border (the third element).  Thus, part of our negative space is bound by the frame and another part is bounded by the positive sp...
Read more

Visual Lecture # Cezanne, Scheile, Dumas -> H20 Media

Paul Cezanne French  1839 - 1906 Paul Cézanne was a French artist and  Post-Impressionist painter  whose work was the foundation for transitioning from a 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different way of looking at subject matter towards the 20th century.  His work eventually leads the way towards the beginning of breaking up space into smaller parts and cubes.    Egon Scheile Austrian 1980 - 1918 Schiele was a protégé of Gustav Klimt.  Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many  self-portraits  the artist produced, including naked self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionist art. He died at the age of 28 of the flu. ...
Read more

#3 Sighting Strategies & Establishing Pictorial Space

The Materials VINE CHARCOAL Vine charcoal is a piece of charred willow. It comes in different softness/hardness varieties. Soft vine charcoal will produce dark gray value, Medium will be lighter, Hard produces the lightest value range. It moves very easily on paper. Its easy to manipulate, almost like clay. It's easy to blend with and remove with a kneaded or plastic eraser. COMPRESSED CHARCOAL Compressed charcoal is much darker.  There is a bit of oil in it, and thus the values you can produce will get much darker than vine.  The blackness you can produce is very rick and dark. Compressed charcoal also comes in pencil form. Compressed charcoal works best for fine details and for when you want to produce a rich shadow. Sighting & Measurement in Still Life Drawings Make use of a pencil, chop stick or other straight hand held tool that you can use to lay against the still life forms you see. This will help yo...
Read more